


Fragile Holds

by for_t2



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Anarchism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badly Cooked Fish, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Freedom, Humor, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Reading, Revolutionaries In Love, Teenage Dorks, The Red Lotus Deserved Better, grass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 04:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30066954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Being forced to kill for a warlord was simple, but being free, being with Zaheer, with Ming-Hua, with Ghazan, that was more complicated (but it was worth it)
Relationships: P'li/Zaheer (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	Fragile Holds

The grass really was greener on the other side. And not just greener, but softer, cleaner, more… peaceful. It wasn’t anything like the rare clumps of grass P’Li had been able to spot in those rare moments when the warlord dragged her out of his compound with a list of names to kill. Those clumps had been small, dirty with ash, and if they had been alive, they weren’t once she did what she had been trained to do.

This grass was alive. This grass was green.

It was good.

Somehow, it was too good. P’li couldn’t stop her arms from curling a little tighter around Zaheer, pulling his back a little closer to her chest as he flipped through to the next page of the latest book he had chosen to engross himself in. It was too good. The light spring breeze was fresh, the water down in the river was clear, and they were free. Zaheer had his books, Ming-Hua… well, Ming-Hua was busy chasing Ghazan around the field, taunting him with badly cooked fish, but they were friends. They had each other, and they were free.

It wasn’t just good, it was very good.

Her arms tightened around Zaheer a little more when she felt him shift in her lap, when she felt his focus drift ever so slightly aware from the ink on the pages. “Hm?”

Nothing was wrong, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? Her kill list was empty, the warlord’s whip was sheathed, and it her hands twitch and her back itch. “You read too much.”

“I…” That made Zaheer shift again. Made him turn to look at like she was the strangest turtle-duck on the continent. “To read is to expand one’s boundaries. To immerse oneself in worlds that we could only hope to explore. It is to hear the wisdom of those who came before us, so carefully preserved on these delicate rolls of parchment.” He sounded so utterly offended that P’Li almost felt as if she should be offended too. “It is as the great Archivist Chen once said: to read is as human as to breath, and so we should treasure our books like the air itself.”

So utterly serious, so utterly eloquent in a way that P’Li had never heard (Ming-Hua preferred the word “pretentious”), that P’Li had to stifle a giggle.

“The point is,” Zaheer tapped his hand on the book. “I do not read too much.”

And maybe part of her also had to stifle that giggle because it was a sound so unfamiliar it scared her. It was strange how many things seemed to scare her and how often they came in moments when there was nothing else that should scare her. “What I mean is that we’ve been lucky.” So far. “Everything that you’ve read to me has made so much sense. And when we walk into a new city, we act like they say we should, and it works.”

“They’re good books.” Zaheer talked often about the Air Nomads, and even if none of them were air benders (even if Zaheer wasn’t a bender at all), they had spent the last year living almost like those nomads. P’Li guessed they had done more good in that year than she had in her life before it. “It’s why I read them.”

“But what happens when we don’t get lucky? If we have to do something the books say is wrong.” P’Li wasn’t a pessimist. Nor was she an optimist. She just did what she had to do. What she was told to kill. “It will happen.”

Zaheer stayed silent for a minute before setting his book down on the grass. “Why are you so sure it will?”

“Because.” She ran her fingers through his hair. Considered all the ways she could twist his neck until the warlord told her she had done a good job. Considered how simple it would be to focus, to feel the fire soaring through her until Ming-Hua and Ghazan were nothing but a crater in the grass. “You told me power corrupts.”

Zaheer nodded. It was one of the first things he taught her after he had freed her. It was the universe’s way of telling people not to try and impose an unnatural order on it. “It always does. It’s why we must strive to eradicate it.” 

He had made it seem so simple. “I have power.”

He frowned. Answered far too quickly. “That’s different.”

“Why?” Because they were in love? Because she had him to guide her? “What makes me different?”

“Did you have power when your village sold you to that warlord?” His voice always had its way of being uniquely threatening when it didn’t rise. “Did you have power when he beat you until you saw blood? Did you have power when he made you celebrate each new body he made you burn? Did you?”

Did she have power when she cried alone in that small stone cell he kept her in? “I was born to kill.”

“No.” Zaheer stated it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You were born to do many things. And now that you’re free, you can.”

“Do you still say that I don’t have power when you see me combustion-bend?”

Zaheer didn’t answer right away.

“Do you?” So P’Li answered for him. She just managed to keep herself from shouting, from giving Ghazan and Ming-Hua a reason to turn away from their game. From giving them a reason to pity her. “Tell me, Zaheer. Would you still say that I have no power if I turned my aim on you?”

“You wouldn’t.”

It’s what she was trained to do. It was what she did best. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re free.” He turned around in her lap to face her fully. “When everyone is free, no one will choose power. No one will choose corruption. And you, P’Li, are free.”

P’Li wasn’t sure she was convinced. Wasn’t sure she could be convinced. The warlord would always be there, somewhere, whispering to a part of her she wished she could forget. “That sounds like a nice dream.”

“It’s why we fight for it.” He smiled softly and placed a hand her chest. To her heart. “Maybe one day your fire will come for me, maybe one day you’ll choose not to be free, but today I am free. And I choose to believe in you.”

P’Li wasn’t going to cry. Staring down into his deep, green eyes, her hand reaching up to slip her fingers between his, she wasn’t going to cry. “Why?”

“Every revolution begins somewhere.” Both his hands reached for hers. “Mine began with you.”

“Zaheer,” P’li whispered, leaning down towards him. “Thank you.”

If she was free, today she would choose to use that freedom to kiss him, to wrap her arms around him like they were the only things in the world. To hold him like they were the most fragile thing in the world. To feel his body against hers and his lips on—

It only took one badly cooked fish smacking his head to send him tumbling forward into her and her tumbling backwards into the grass.

To force her to stuff her face into his hair to stop herself from collapsing into a fit of giggles.

By the time Ming-Hua and Ghazan finally rushed over, both looking extremely contrite, she had to force herself to stifle another wave of giggles at the sound of Zaheer’s quiet humph.

As he helped her to her feet, she wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “You should write a book someday.” Pulled him closer to her and smiled at him. “Pass on your wisdom to those who will come after us. You can tell them about us.” About how her revolution began. “Tell them that we were powerless. That we’re free.”


End file.
